Conventionally, various types of aircraft utilize actuators including, for example, to deploy nose, body, and/or wing landing gear systems. Conventional actuator components are made of metallic materials and often comprise complex geometries and high strengths. However, these metallic components are typically heavy.
Substitution of metals by fiber-reinforced polymer-matrix composites (PMC) is one way to reduce weight of landing gears or aircraft actuators. Among significant challenges is implementation of strong joints for load transfer from composite elements to metallic parts. The composite elements are typically fabricated in the form of tubes and are capable of handling significant axial loads under both tension and compression. However, conventional methods of attaching composite materials to other materials can reduce the structural performance of the joint, especially when, for example, the majority of fibers in a polymer-matrix composite tube have a zero orientation and are thus parallel to the longitudinal/centerline axis of the composite tube.